As I am older then most here, my own “personal evolution”
takes in much different ground… the only thing to note before I was
18 is that my earlier years were of wealth, then by age 10, poverty
and poverty was my companion for many years…
as for my political views, I as does everyone, simply followed my
parents political views… as they were upper class media types,
they were left of center, nothing too radical…and neither was I…
the first turning point in my individual evolution was the election of
Ronny Raygun in 1980…at that point I had lived in California for several years
and saw first hand the damage he did as governor and I knew what damage
he would do to the country if elected…politically, I was radicalized…
in time, I became an anarchist… and lived the anarchist life… I was completely
off the grid…
and philosophically I was radicalized by my reading of Nietzsche… before N.
I really didn’t think philosophically…and I believed myself to be the Ubermensh….
oh, the lies we tell ourselves when we are young……
and as one grows older, the lies we tell ourselves change…
the lies become lies of practicality…
I would do that but I can’t because of……
I remained an anarchist for the rest of the 80’s but I changed my philosophical
position several times over the decade… from a follower of Hume to
a major phase of existentialism which engaged me for many years…
in the nineties, I realized the failure of anarchism, so I reengaged with
communism…as my politics were slowly becoming less radical,
so was my philosophy…
I have had three distinct political positions
and at least 5 distinct philosophical positions…
and in all that time, over 40 years, I never wavered from being
an atheist…
my philosophical and political changes have been due to the
changing, evolving conditions on the ground…
we must adapt and change both our political and philosophy
with the changing situations we find ourselves in…
I adapt with the times… which is more then I can say for most people…
most people hold on to their beliefs with a death grip… because for most
people, their beliefs define who they are and if their beliefs are wrong,
then everything they have stood for is wrong…to be wrong would
challenged everything they know or understand about the world and themselves…
to be wrong would mean one’s place in the universe would be unmoored
and people would feel disconnected and alienated from themselves and society…
our beliefs and actions stem from a place within us…
when I walk into a room, I usually guess that I am the smartest person
in that room, that knowledge, that security gives me the starting point
of my interactions with people and the universe…
I have a strength that most people don’t have… and I work from that strength…
which allows me to act and interact with people…
let us say that I discover I am actually of average intelligence… my strength
would be negated, I would not have some place of strength to approach the world…
I would become unsteady and unsure…I would doubt myself…
I would become disconnected and alienated from the beliefs that have
allowed me to connect to the world………
to become who you are allows one to deal with, have interactions with
people from a secure and safe place… who we are… that is the place
where we begin… we flow from our inner being to our outer self…
if we are connected to our inner being, our “who we are” we flow from
a position of strength… this knowledge of “who we are” allows us to
successfully engage with the world…the being “Kropotkin” begins not
with the outside visible self, but with his understanding of “who he is”,
all his actions and interactions flow from Kropotkin’s knowledge of
who he is…we travel from our inner selves to our outer self…
all our outer actions and interactions flow from our knowledge of who we are…
if we are confused as to who we are, then our actions and interactions with others,
reflect that confusion…
my own personal evolution has taken me to a place where if I am to understand myself,
I must not begin with my actions or interactions with others, but with the knowledge
of “who I am”…
Kropotkin is not the action or interactions he has with others, but Kropotkin
is that inside of him, that “who I am”…when I say me… I am saying, “who I am”
that inside of me… I think of myself as the smartest person in the room,
that understanding of who I am is the basis of my actions and interactions
with the universe…
I begin there… I am the smartest person in the room…
everything flows from that knowledge…
but that knowledge might be a lie…
and only confusion and uncertainty and disconnection can come from
that new knowledge… …
so I continue to believe I am the smartest person in the room…
but at what cost?
Kropotkin